Merlin Tuttle

Who is Merlin Tuttle?

Merlin Devere Tuttle, an American ecologist, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1941. He co-directed the Venezuelan Research Project of the Smithsonian Institution from 1965 to 1967, performed research on population ecology at the University of Minnesota in 1972, then became curator of mammals at the Milwaukee Public Museum from 1975 to 1986.

He made many contributions to studies of predator and prey interaction and foraging behaviour in mammals, and the energetics of thermo-regulation, hibernation, and migration in bats. He founded Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas to "promote a positive image of bats and encourage their preservation.

Tuttle's interest in bats came at a young age. He moved to Little Creek School, a Seventh-day Adventist boarding school near Concord, Tennessee with his family in 1958. His father was the biology teacher at the school and took many students caving which was how Merlin began exploring nearby Baloney Cave with his high school friends.

In the 1950s, it was believed that gray bats lived in the same caves year-round. Tuttle noticed what seemed to be migratory behavior. He would watch as thousands of gray bats streamed into a cave near the Tennessee River in the fall and again in the spring.